


Who So Firm That Cannot Be Seduced

by Fallynleaf



Category: Julius Caesar - Shakespeare
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Quarrel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-15
Updated: 2016-10-15
Packaged: 2018-08-22 13:51:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8287975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fallynleaf/pseuds/Fallynleaf
Summary: After their quarrel and before the battle, Brutus and Cassius share a moment of intimacy.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this after rereading Julius Caesar for a class in grad school, seven years after I first fell in love with the play in high school. I wrote a little bit of Julius Caesar fanfiction back then, but nothing substantial, and certainly nothing worth publishing.
> 
> All of the dialogue in this fic is Shakespeare's, taken from act four, scene three of Julius Caesar. Unconventional interpretive lens notwithstanding, this fic fits seamlessly into the play. The title is from one of Cassius' lines from his soliloquy at the end of act one, scene two.

In the low light of the tent, closed off from the rest of the world, Brutus and Cassius stood apart, not quite meeting each other’s eyes.

“I did not think you could have been so angry,” Cassius said, quiet.

“O Cassius, I am sick of many griefs.” Brutus sighed, weariness evident in his voice.

“Of your philosophy you make no use if you give place to accidental evils,” Cassius said. He tried to meet Brutus’s eye, searching for an explanation.

“No man bears sorrow better,” Brutus said bitterly. “Portia is dead.”

“Ha? Portia?” Cassius said, shocked.

“She is dead.”

A moment of silence passed, recorded in flickers of candlelight.

“How scaped I killing when I crossed you so?” Cassius said, stepping closer to Brutus, reaching for him. “O insupportable and touching loss! Upon what sickness?”

Brutus shook him off. “Impatient of my absence, and grief that young Octavius with Mark Antony have made themselves so strong—for with her death that tidings came—with this she fell distract, and, her attendants absent, swallowed fire.” He leaned against a table and closed his eyes.

“And died so?” Cassius asked.

“Even so.” If Brutus had been any other man, Cassius might’ve heard his voice break as he spoke. But Brutus was not another man, and even now, he did not waver with emotion.

“O ye immortal gods!” Cassius whispered.

Again, Cassius reached out for Brutus, and this time, Brutus let him. Cassius rested a narrow-fingered hand on Brutus’s arm, feeling the weight and warmth of a man burdened with so much grief. They always seemed to come back to each other, Cassius and Brutus did. No matter what got between them.

Brutus looked at Cassius, then, his eyes heavy, and Cassius looked back, projecting sympathy and something else. Something a little darker. There was more than one balm for grief. More than one way to bandage a quarrel. They’d danced around it this whole time, in Cassius’ seduction by words, in the soft intimacy of whispers in the conspiratorial night, but something had always held Brutus back. Either resolve or shame or something else.

Whatever it was, it was crumbling. Cassius could see it in the way Brutus looked at him, in the way that Brutus’ breathing quickened as Cassius’s fingers roamed gently over his skin, in the way that Brutus had started to lean into—

The makeshift door to the tent swept open as Lucius pushed past the fabric, bearing wine and tapers.

Brutus stiffened and moved apart from Cassius, and Cassius’ hand fell away.

 “Speak no more of her,” Brutus said, his voice a little rough. “Give me a bowl of wine.” He took the cup offered by Lucius. “In this I bury all unkindness, Cassius.” He looked out past them both, past the flickering candles, past the walls of the tent, and took a long drink.

“My heart is thirsty for that noble pledge,” Cassius said, approaching Brutus once again. This time, he wasn’t going to let the moment pass. He wasn’t going to let them dance around it once more. Not when this might be the last night of all of the nights. The last battle of all of the battles. “Fill, Lucius, till the wine o’er-swell the cup,” Cassius said, his eyes only on Brutus.

The boy Lucius was already on his way out, not wanting to interrupt. As the fabric over the entrance fell closed, Cassius’ hand found Brutus’ cheek, and Brutus turned with it, closing his eyes.

“I cannot drink too much of Brutus’ love,” Cassius murmured as his lips met Brutus’.

The kiss tasted of wine and sorrow and fire. Cassius thought of Portia, then, briefly, and wondered if Brutus was thinking of her, then, too. He kissed deeper after that, swallowing the words from Brutus’ mouth. Then he moved his lips to kiss Brutus’ neck, then went lower than that.

Cassius didn’t hear when Titinius and Messala arrived outside of the tent and Lucius quietly barred them from entering. He could only hear the sound of Brutus’ breath and the sound of his own, passing between the rhythm of their bodies.

Tomorrow, they might die. But tonight they were going to live.


End file.
